Forget dendrochronology, there's a new compound -ology in town: astroseismology.
The new Kepler telescope is designed to measure tiny fluctuations in stars' brightness. Stars are giant balls of gas, which is continually in motion, and the massive movement of gas creates great pressure waves, effectively sound waves of very low frequency. As these sound waves resonate within a star, they slightly change both the brightness and the colour of the star's light. Kepler can detect these changes, and by working backwards, scientists can deduce information about the sound waves and the star.
Like a musical instrument, bigger stars create sound waves at lower pitches. And there are also harmonics in the signal, which indicate the depth of origin of the sound waves, and the amount of hydrogen or helium they passed through. The sounds are thousands of times lower than we can hear. They can of course be speeded up, but it doesn't sound any more like "Twinkle twinkle".
Between September 2010 and September 2011, I lived alongside an Anglican Benedictine community of monks and nuns. In November 2010, we moved from Broad Marston Manor near Evesham to Mucknell Abbey, a new eco-monastery near Worcester. This blog was about things that I observed and things that interested me. I have now stopped writing it. Thank you to all who were also interested.
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